Did you have feelings about that title? Did it make you feel sad, confused or possibly even ashamed? Afterall, we love our dogs and it seems unlikely that anyone reading this post is intentionally trying to create conflict with their beloved pet. So before I jump into the signs of a trust account that needs some repair, I want to reassure you that trust accounts can feel broken for many, many reasons and the vast majority of them aren’t due to something you are intentionally doing.
Tag: canine enrichment
Trash to Treasure: How We Use Recycled Enrichment to Support Natural Pet Behaviors
It’s a beautiful spring day and I’m sitting at the Firefly Coffee House finishing my house-made bagel with peach spice cream cheese schmear (yes, it was good). As I finish scraping the cream cheese out of the small plastic container, I think to myself “I wish Petey was here…” You see, one of my dog’s most important roles in our home is cleaning out items bound for the recycling bin. My next thought was…how unhinged of me would it be to put this in my car so I can take it home to Peter?
In this week’s episode of Enrichment for the Real World, Emily (who would undoubtedly encourage my cream cheese trash caching impulse) discusses exactly how to introduce your pets to the world of DIY pet enrichment. If you’ve never given your pet this type of activity, I suggest you give it a listen!
We’ve covered this topic on the blog in different ways over the years, so if you are unsure why we are all handing our trash over to our pets, here are some great places to start:
- July 2022 Training Challenge: Explore Variety Through a Cardboard Box: Ellen explores different ways to provide foraging opportunities using cardboard boxes, including photo examples of different setups.
- July 2023 Enrichment Challenge: Try a New Active Foraging Option: Ellen provides a variety of options for foraging using common disposable / recyclable items and examples of how you might use them.
- September 2023 Enrichment Challenge: Trial and Eval Calming Foraging Activities Observation is such an important part of enrichment. Here, Ellen discusses how to observe how your dog interacts with new projects, and what to do with that information.
- Budget Friendly Enrichment Options: Ellen really likes to write about trash. This time she compares different toys (that cost money) and some alternatives that do not!
As discussed in most of these blogs as well as on the podcast, any time you provide your pet a new activity, watch them. See how they work on the item. If they ingest non-food items, your trash enrichment opportunities will look different, or they may not be an option for your pet.
Related: If you provide your pet with an item that previously contained food, make sure you read the ingredients so you know it is safe for them. Here is a reference with common ingredients and household items that can be dangerous: Potentially Dangerous Items for Your Pet – US Food & Drug Administration.
Creative Ways to Use Recycled Materials for Enrichment
In a Pet Harmony first (probably?), the whole team is here to share the actual ways we utilize materials that are on their way to the recycling (or trash) bin to encourage species-typical behaviors with the pets in our homes.
If the number of blogs we have (and that list up there isn’t even all of them) that discuss using trash for enrichment doesn’t tell you how common and important these practices are in our households, seeing the overlap in the way we are all using these items might. Here are some of the most common materials and activities I saw in submissions from the team:
- Toilet paper / paper towel tubes: Tuck the ends in on a tube and suddenly it’s a tiny paper pocket. Chuck some treats in there and you can:
- Just hand it over and watch your pet pull the tube apart to get to their snack.
- Hide them around – now you have an activity that encompasses scentwork, foraging, and dissecting (tearing apart).
- Put them inside other items, much like the next point…
- Box in a box in a box / nesting doll boxes: That’s it. Just stuffing food/treats inside of boxes and then putting boxes inside of other boxes.
- Takeout containers: These items come with bonus flavors / scents since they just had food in them!
- Plastic food containers: Ditto on these. Yogurt, cottage cheese, cream cheese, peanut butter…anything your dog can have that comes in a container also comes with a potential activity. Toss them the container and let them clean it out before you chuck it in the recycling/trash bin.
Ellen’s blogs on Budget Friendly Enrichment Options and Explore Variety Through a Cardboard Box describe these activities in more detail.
Why Recycled Enrichment Supports Natural Pet Behaviors
Species-typical behaviors are at the core of enrichment. Ensuring that ANY species living in captivity have outlets for behaviors that are normal and innate is a basic component of welfare. Learning your pet’s species-typical behaviors allows you to find creative but budget-friendly ways to meet their needs. In the sections that follow, you will see how our team uses items described in the previous section (and more!) to allow the species they live with to engage in behaviors that meet their individual needs. Spoilers: it’s not just foraging!
Here are a few examples of species-typical behaviors that we are supporting with, well, junk:
- Emily’s eclectus parrot, Cah’ya, gets curled up plastic straws as a stand-in for another bird to preen
- Taylor’s dogs get to move, stretch, and balance with box obstacle courses
- Bundini the bunny gets to dig and burrow even though he lives indoors at Emily’s house thanks to large cardboard boxes
- MaryKaye’s 17 year old senior citizen (dogizen?), Fonzy, can still shred and dissect like a young pup thanks to toilet paper tubes
- Ellen re-stuffs toys with old scraps of fabric so Griffey and Laika never run out items to dissect
We Love Trash
The time has come! Let’s dig into the trash stash and see what the team gets up to at home. I suggest you put on this inspiring song by Oscar the Grouch while you read.
Emily, Copper, and Miley (plus Bundini the rabbit and Cah’ya the eclectus parrot)
The dogs have their own recycle bin where we put any cardboard or plastic trash that is safe for them to destroy and they get to choose what they want to pull out.
Medium and small cardboard boxes get turned into “russian nesting dolls,” by which I mean I put packing paper and dog treats into the largest box, put the next largest box inside it, then put packing paper and dog treats into that box, put the next largest box inside it, and so on.
Paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls get stuffed with balled up pieces of packing paper and dog treats for the dogs, packing paper and cage mix for Cah’ya, and hay and alfalfa pellets for Bundini.
Large cardboard boxes get set aside for Cah’ya so she can turn them into her “nest”. She regularly destroys her nests, which allows me to replace them with the next box.
I have a wacky whirly tool for the times when I end up with a plastic straw. I try to avoid straws whenever possible, but when they happen I can use the wacky whirly tool to turn the straw into a springy coil. When I’ve collected enough of them, I tie them all together and hang them in the bird room for Cah’ya to allopreen and/or shred them. The added benefit is that when she’s done with them and they eventually have to be thrown away, they no longer pose a risk to wildlife in their springy-coil state!
Scraps of fabric from any fabric project I’ve got going on end up as bird toys – again for allopreening or shredding – or as knotted tug toys for Miley, my puppy.
Everyone once in a while we get a really gigantic cardboard box – usually when we buy a new piece of furniture or other household item – and I’ll use it to make Bundini’s “burrow.” Since he lives in our house he can’t physically burrow underground, so I cut rabbit-sized holes on either side of the gigantic box, stuff the box full of hay, and let Bundini burrow in the hay in the box. Like Cah’ya, he eventually destroys his burrow boxes, which allows me to replace it with the next gigantic box.
Claire and Olivia
Any possible boxes that are received are always a go to. I also use paper towel/toilet paper rolls, packing paper, and paper bags – especially from takeout! Since she’s on the smaller side, if we get a large box, I will fill it with treats and paper, and encourage her to get inside of it and rummage which she loves.
I like to also use toys Olivia hasn’t paid attention to in a while and stuff all the trash into those.
I’m a big fan of letting Olivia sniff “safe trash” outside because she loves to sniff and check it out for a while. I think it also builds her confidence.
We also were gifted a nice comforter in a plastic carrying bag and it ripped on the side, so she would crawl into it and roll around which I found hilarious. I left it there forever to entertain her.
Tiffany Chen and Sihtric
I like to collect recyclables like cardboard boxes, paper towel tubes, paper bags, and the packing paper from Chewy boxes. I stash them in a big bag in the kitchen. On days when it’s too hot or windy here in Las Vegas to take Sihtric for a walk, I go straight to that stash. I’ll stuff the boxes and tubes with treats, then pile everything into a big box for him to dig through. If I’m feeling a little extra, I’ll toss in a chew and a Toppl filled with canned food.
Shredding and sniffing are his favorite things, so he really takes his time with it. I love this setup because it’s super low effort on my end, and while he’s busy with his box, I get to do my own thing. Afterward, he’s usually passed out, which tells me his needs are met!
MaryKaye and Fonzy
Senior dogs love to get down and dirty in the trash too! While my 17 year old pooch may not have the teeth and jaw strength for super thick cardboard boxes anymore, he can still shred a toilet paper roll or paper towel tube with the best of them!
I am a little more discerning about the materials I give to him so that I can help him be successful and not get overly frustrated. The things that have proven to be most successful for him include cracker boxes, brown paper delivery envelopes and the aforementioned paper toilet and paper towel tubes. He also loves treats wrapped up in “gently used” wrapping paper so we have a saved pile of used wrapping paper at the ready when he is looking for something fun to do. While senior dogs’ physical abilities may change over time, you can still meet their needs by finding the right kind of trashy treasures!
Ellen, Griffey, and Laika
I’m constantly looking for ways to use what I already have to make homemade pet toys from recyclables. It is one of the ways that I can practice some creativity and stretch my brain while taking care of my dogs. But, to be honest, when it comes to day-to-day life with my dogs, I keep it pretty simple. I stick with a couple tried-and-true options:
- I use a small, dog-accessible bin next to my desk specifically for my scrap paper. Sometimes my dogs get fed up with me doing the human work thing, and their default is to go over, pull out some paper, and give it a good ol’ shred. I always make sure there is something in there for them!
- I use scraps of old rags, shirts, socks, old stuffed toy carcasses… You know the kind, to create foraging boxes. It’s cheaper than buying all new stuffed toys, it keeps the mess better contained, and it lets my pups use their nose, rip and shred, and eat all at once.
- The good ol’ treat wrapped in paper, wrapped in a box, wrapped in paper, wrapped in a box, in a box, in a box, in a bag, stacking doll of destruction. This one is the most time and effort for me both in building and clean up, but I love watching my dogs use their muscles to get through all the layers.
Corinne and Opie
I love Opie more than anything in the whole wide world, but if I have to hear him scream at me with boredom after the kids have gone to bed I’m gonna lose my ever-loving mind. The solution for us (which also completely eradicated him chewing on our baseboards and gives us something to occupy him during kids’ bedtime) is to split his meals into shreddables (literally any thickness, he’s so talented!) and hide them around the house. We usually do 5-6, but I’m not afraid to divide it into 8-9 if I see the glimmer in his eye. Coffee cups, takeout bags, newspapers, ads, return envelopes, toilet paper tubes, paper towel tubes, children’s artwork (*gasp* I ask first…usually), anything!
Allie and Oso
There are a few ways that I incorporate recyclables into Oso’s enrichment plan. I use them to create his DIY destructible toys which primarily serve two functions:
- Fun and boredom relief
- Stress-relief (from good stress or bad stress- he chooses to shred regardless of what the big feeling is)
We also have a little bucket next to our garbage can for Oso-safe recyclables that he can pull out when he wants. It’s so cute to watch him grab one and trot away as if he found a treasure.
Taylor, Ghost, and Eden (plus Took and Lilith the cats!)
Some of our favorite trash items are Aldi boxes and paper bags, fiber egg cartons, paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls, craft paper, extra napkins, and sometimes things like tires, unoccupied lime scooters, bricks, extra wood, etc.
For the cats, Took and Lilith love all the paper and boxes that come with grocery shopping. We change the landscape of the kitchen and office from time to time a little by experimenting with different boxes. Some they gravitate to and others get quickly moved along to the recycling.
We are building skills for our younger cat Lilith to learn to explore a little for her food, so small cardboard pieces help make up pseudo-slow feeders.
For the dogs we go a little sillier with our trash! We love cardboard and egg cartons for the fun find it games, and food puzzles too. But sometimes the “trash” gets a second life in confidence building games. Here are some examples:
- Foot targets out of wood and grip tape for our fitness practice
- Old tires or different surfaces (pre checked for any scary things) for investigating and standing on
- Crumpled up napkins for added difficulty in their “shreddables”
- Old towels for rolled up treats puzzles and find it games
- Obstacle courses made of different materials and surfaces to play with getting on and over (sometimes they even move!?)
- Surface library (different textures, angles, heights) from leftover tiles pieces, yoga mats, blankets, plastic, etc.
Tiffany Holmes and Petey
One of Petey’s favorite snacktivities (that’s an activity that includes a snack, obviously) is searching for hidden destructibles. I discuss this in detail in Indoor Adventure Time, but we also play this outside in our small back yard as well. The rules are simple: I put some food in some sort of containers that he can pull apart and destroy, I hide them, and he sniffs around to find and dissect them so he can get to his snacks.
His other favorite is having his dinner (which is kibble) out of a takeout container that has remnants of the takeout inside. Pizza boxes and the small white paper containers with flaps at the top that tuck in to close (as in Chinese takeout boxes with no metal handle) are top tier.
Trash is an important part of one of Petey’s safe spaces as well! When my mom gifted us toilet paper and paper towels from Costco, Petey benefitted not only from the cardboard tubes, but the giant boxes as well. When he needs to move away from hollering out the window, I’ll cue him to his room, chuck a handful of treats into his giant snuffle box full of packing paper, and he dives right in.
And Now for the Dramatic Conclusion
If you ever cut out and/or decorated windows and doors in a giant cardboard box and turned it into a playhouse as a kid, you’ve felt the joy of homo sapiens’ species-typical behaviors in the form of play!
So the next time you find yourself looking at a package or box and thinking “this is a good one for enrichment, I better save it,” we say: you’re welcome.
And for anyone who read this far: I DID bring home that little plastic cup with leftover peach spice schmear and give it to Petey, and he loved it.
Now What?
Did our dedication to trash spark any ideas for you? If you’re ready to begin setting up your own trashrichment, but aren’t sure how to keep all of this extra junk around, here are a couple of ideas from the team:
- Keep the biggest, nicest, thickest boxes and use them for storage
- Have an open bin with safe items for your pets to access like Emily and Ellen
- Save the big boxes for big snuffles–throw in packing paper or other paper items and throw in some treats
If the creativity is flowing and you want to learn more, sign up for our weekly newsletter for more tips, info, and events!
Here’s to harmony (and trash) !
Tiffany (Holmes) & the Pet Harmony Team
When Kids Are Part of the Plan: Crafting Enrichment Plans for Families
By this point in time, I imagine that many pet parents have heard the term “enrichment” being bandied about, especially if you are one of the pet parents that happen to be frequent visitors around these parts. I can offer no apologies for being as passionate about enrichment as we are here at Pet Harmony. After all, the way we define enrichment should help you to understand why. Enrichment is all about meeting ALL of an individual’s needs which is, you know, kinda important for survival and well being.
I one hundred percent acknowledge that defining things can be much easier than putting them into practice, however. Especially for busy families. Work, school, after school activities, meal prep, household tasks, paying bills and meeting kids’ enrichment needs can take a toll. I felt exhausted just writing that sentence! Y’all are responsible for so much!
It gets even more complex when we add a pet or two into the mix. How do we navigate meeting everyone’s needs when we barely have enough time to get the basics done? How do we make sure that the kids’ needs, the pets’ needs and our own needs are being met when there are still groceries to buy, dinners to prepare, homework to complete, practice to attend, and baths to give?
While I can’t help you with grocery shopping or carpool responsibilities, the purpose of this post is to help you with crafting plans that will help you help your pets. My goal is to empower you to create sustainable, safe and enriching environments that support all the members of the family including small humans and your furry four legged friends.
Let’s be strategic first.
There are plenty of ways that you can safely involve your kids with partial responsibility for meeting the needs of your pets. There are also plenty of good reasons why you might want to consider doing so. There is existing research that indicates that having and caring for pets has a positive effect on child development, including intellectual development, concentration, social interactions, and stress reduction.
Even so, it is a good idea to make sure you take your pets and your children into consideration. Factors to consider include the ages of both your pets and your children, the physical health of the pet, the sociability of your pet and the relationship your pet and child share. We should never do something just for the sake of doing it. We have to do an analysis of the benefits for the individuals involved. If you are feeling uncertain about what that looks like, working with a training and/or behavior professional can help you come up with strategies that will work for your particular situation. Overall, the goal should focus on building/strengthening bonds, fostering responsibility and empathy, while balancing the needs of your family with the needs of your pets.
Still with me?
Strategies that can work for the younger child crowd are outlined in this blog post and include Montessori-inspired ways to have your child prep food, water, food puzzles and lick mats. Older kids can have more independence in terms of helping with the day to day tasks that are required to maintain physical and emotional health in our pets. Depending on the child’s age this can include the following ideas:
- feeding
- playing tug or fetch
- playing hide and seek
- teaching new skills through training
- prepping enrichment puzzles or toys
- simple games like “find it” or “kibble fetch.”
Again, the focus here should be on fostering the relationship between child and pup so choose the activities that match the energy level of both. In order for enrichment to truly be enriching, we should not be taking a one-size-fits-all approach in any case. If you have a low key pup but a high energy kid, playing a short, active game like tug or fetch can easily be followed by having your child scatter some treats in the yard for their best friend to sniff out. Don’t be afraid to ask for your kids’ input too. They are incredibly creative problem solvers and there is likely to be higher buy-in from them if they are part of the decision making process! They might enjoy looking at this blog post about creating low cost DIY enrichment to get their creative juices flowing.
School’s almost out for summer…let’s make a plan!
While we are on the subject of kids and dogs and meeting needs, I’ve got one more suggestion to share. With summer quickly approaching and kids’ presence in the home looming large over a dog’s day, it’s important to plan for the inevitable changes in daily routines, schedules and predictability. I highly recommend getting a jump start on your planning now so that habits can be built (for pets and humans alike) before a potential conflict occurs.
As excited as I suspect most kids are at the prospect of lazier summer days, I wonder what pets would say if they had the ability to tell us what is on their minds. After all, the majority of pets spend a fairly significant portion of their days resting, relaxing, and napping off and on. With more folks present in the home during summer vacation, the environment might be less supportive of meeting a pet’s individual need for rest. It might be a surprise for some folks, but rest and relaxation fall under the very important enrichment category of calming enrichment. It’s so important that it gets its own chapter in Canine Enrichment For the Real World. Rest, relaxation and sleep are all integral for well being no matter what species we are talking about.
So, what’s the plan?
If we know that calming enrichment is significant in its importance for our pets, how can we arrange things so that it is more likely that our pets will have this need met during the hustle and bustle of summertime? Great calming enrichment activities with ways that kids can prep for them are as follows:
- Licking enrichment:
- Create dog safe recipes that the kids can spread on a licki mat or stuff into a Kong or Toppl.
- Kong has some great recipe ideas on their website as does West Paw and here is a list of dog safe foods for ideas that can be used.
- Don’t forget the kitties-they like licking activities too!
- Scent enrichment:
- Send the kids on a treasure hunt to see what smells they can dig up from inside and outside the house. Dirty socks are sure to be a hit!
- Basil or other herbs from the garden can be of interest to some pets.
- Catnip for cats can be grown in a pot and tended to by the nurturers in your family.
- Found tufts of rabbit fur can be intoxicating.
- Sea shells from the beach, or leaves, branches and dirt from a nearby forest preserve can be collected and brought back to be used on a rainy day.
- If you like listening to podcasts, here is an Enrichment for the Real World podcast episode that has other scent enrichment ideas that you and your child can implement together. Many of which are super easy!
- Chewing enrichment:
- Does your child like to engage in citizen science? If so, can the animal they observe and learn about be the pets in your house?
- If we narrow that down, can they design an “experiment” to see which chewing enrichment your pet enjoys the most? What do they hypothesize?
- How can they collect data? Once they have their observations encourage them to share their findings with the other members of the family. Perhaps a little data scientist will emerge in the future!
- Safe spaces that include the ability to rest and nap:
- Ask your child for their observations about where they see your pets resting frequently.
- Based on the information they provide, discuss the ways in which you will keep that location as “dog friendly” as possible. Ask them for ways in which they can make sure to communicate this to other household members.
- Would they like to make a sign that says “Daisy’s Sleep Zone” so that everyone knows that when Daisy is resting there, they should not be disturbed?
- If your pet’s favorite resting place is in the hub of the home, let’s say on the family room couch, ask them to help you think of alternate resting spaces that will give the pet a kid free, quieter location to rest.
- Share this Grumble and Growl Zones resource from Family Paws with them so they understand the importance of leaving the family pets alone when they are resting or enjoying a doggie snack.
Now What?
If you know me at all, you know that one of the things I say a lot is to be proactive, not reactive! Let’s start creating healthy sustainable habits now that will set everyone up for success in the future. This includes the following goals:
- Include the human kids in the household to be part of the creative, troubleshooting process. You might be surprised at the ideas they come up with. A nice side-effect is that taking a team approach typically works to create a deeper investment in the process.
- Enrichment is a wonderful way to build bonds between pets and kids. With the suggestions above, getting started should not be super labor intensive.
- Start planning for a safe space now so that when summer vacation starts, you are well prepared.
- I’ve already shared that at Pet Harmony we are passionate about creating enrichment plans that support your pets without being terribly taxing on the human. We know you are busy and that, while you love your pets, they are not your only priority. If you need help, we are here for you!
Here’s to harmony!
MaryKaye
Resources
- Yu, C. (2024) A Systematic Review of the Positive Effects Of Pets on Child Development. Communications in Humanities Research, 39, 82-87
Indoor Adventure Time
It’s 7am on a blustery December day and Petey the Wondermutt has a very important 8am appointment for a jaunt in the woods. I can hear the wind howling outside, so I pick up my phone to check the weather. Windchill of -4 degrees!? Guess we’re stuck inside.
Last night we had seen an increase in frequency, intensity, and duration of barking when my husband (hereby known as Big Man) came home from work. I knew that meant Petey could use some time tracking scents, moving his body, investigating his surroundings, and ideally spending some time digging. An off-leash romp in the woods, a meandering walk in the cemetery on a long line, or an adventure to a nature preserve would be ideal options for engaging in most of these behaviors (I’m not going to make the cemetery grounds crew mad at me by letting him dig a hole!). But with the sudden drop in temperature, those options were off the table.
Agency: What It Is & Why Your Pet Needs It
A few weeks ago there was a discussion in our Enrichment for Pet Behavior Issues Community Facebook group where I realized that I’ve never actually written a post about agency itself. Sure, I’ve included this topic in other posts but I’ve never devoted an entire post to this topic alone. It’s about time that changed! So this week is solely devoted to a topic that I don’t think gets near enough attention in the pet community: agency.
What is agency?
Agency is the ability to have some level of control in our environment and be able to make choices that will result in a desirable outcome. One of the important factors here is that agency requires at least two desirable choices. A “cake or death” decision a la Eddie Izzard doesn’t fly.
A pet example of a choice that fits the criteria would be the choice to sleep on comfy bed A or on comfy bed B. An example of a choice that doesn’t fit the criteria would be come when I call or get shocked. Make no mistake, though, it’s entirely possible to use food coercively as well. Such as, you can have delicious treats but only if you approach a person you find scary. Those examples don’t have at least two great choices to choose from.
Why agency is important
There are so many reasons why agency is important that it would take me an entire book chapter to explain them all 😉 The short answer is it’s helpful in:
- Combating learned helplessness
- Creating resilience
- Improving behavioral health
- Improving quality of life (I don’t have research to back this bullet point up since “quality of life” is pretty subjective, but I think it’s safe to say that this is likely true from an anecdotal capacity and if we look at all the other things agency does for an individual.)
On a more practical note, having agency can be huge when it comes to how an individual reacts in certain situations. Here’s the example I use with my clients to illustrate this point:
Say that you’re at an educational wildlife event. The presenter is holding a snake. You hang out at the back of the room, fearful to move closer. The presenter continues talking about the snake they’re holding and offers for anyone to touch the snake who would like to do so. By the end of the presentation you’ve made your way to the front of the room and touch the snake. This was not a scary experience because you had full control over whether or not you put your hand on the snake.
Now, let’s say you’re having a picnic. You’re sitting and chatting with your friends when you put your hand down– right on top of a snake. Chances are you’re not okay with this scenario, even though it’s the exact same behavior– hand on snake– as above. You may scream, run away, or perform some other fight or flight behavior. The difference between these scenarios is that you didn’t have the choice to touch the snake in the picnic but did in the presentation.
We seem to see this with our pets, too. I often see reactive dogs who are far less reactive when they’re able to move away from the scary thing than when they’re made to sit there and watch it. Or dogs with separation anxiety who display fewer stress-related behaviors or less intense stress-related behaviors when they’re given more space to move about in the house (though, confinement anxiety is also a thing). While we can’t necessarily ask our pets in these situations if it’s agency that’s truly causing the change in behavior, we see it consistently enough that it’s a valid hypothesis.
How can I provide more choices in my pet’s life?
There are so many ways to do this and we have a lot of examples in our book, Canine Enrichment for the Real World. Here are some easy options:
- Multiple sleeping areas to choose from
- Being able to choose where they go and what they sniff on a walk
- Food preference tests
- Toy preference tests
Here are couple that are more involved but also allow for even more agency in situations where it really counts:
- Cooperative care & start button behaviors for medical and grooming procedures
- Being able to choose whether or not they move closer to a stressor– without luring with food
But… what if they make poor choices?
Agency doesn’t mean that your pet has full authority to do whatever they want. If you have a pet who bites people coming into the house they still need to be managed to ensure they don’t bite people coming into the house. We should not diminish safety to increase choice.
Agency means providing choices that don’t compromise safety, physical health, mental or behavioral health, or enable them to practice unwanted behaviors. That sometimes means that our pets may not have multiple choices in a situation. When that happens we can acknowledge that and work on training a skill that allows our pet to have choices in future similar situations. For example, a dog who doesn’t have a rock solid recall (come when called) shouldn’t be off-leash even though being off-leash allows for more agency. Instead of resigning to that, we can work on training a rock solid recall for future use.
Now what?
- Assess the choices your pet currently has. Don’t be critical or hard on yourself; we’re simply assessing to see where we have room for improvement.
- In those areas where you find your pet doesn’t have agency, ask yourself why that is. Is it to mitigate safety concerns? Is it to mitigate unwanted behaviors? Or, are there situations where you’re not quite sure or because it’s what someone once recommended or you think it’s what you should be doing? Keep probing until you find those answers.
- If you’re newer to agency and thinking about your pet’s choices, choose one of those easier situations to increase your pet’s desirable choices.
- If this is something that you’ve been working on or thinking about for a while, you may want to consider one of the more involved options. Cooperative care is a great place to start for almost everyone.
- If you’re interested in learning more about agency and how to incorporate it into your pet’s life, check out our book Canine Enrichment for the Real World and be sure to join us in our Facebook group.
Happy training!
Allie
December 2020 Training Challenge: Holiday Safety
It’s time for our last training challenge of 2020! Keeping with our holiday and enrichment theme from last month, this month’s training challenge is inspired by the “Safety” chapter of our book, Canine Enrichment for the Real World.
Create a holiday safety enrichment plan
Holidays often bring about a lot of décor changes within our homes and some of those changes are safer than others. Plants like poinsettias and mistletoe are toxic to our furry family members (and us). Candles and wagging tails present fire hazards. Extra candies around the house make for prime counter surfing targets.
Then there are those holiday decorations that aren’t necessarily dangerous in and of themselves, but that we still need to include in holiday safety plans, like Christmas trees. Or things like decorations with sentimental value that need to be protected from our pets rather than the other way around. And that’s just the decorations!
Here are 7 tips to creating your holiday safety enrichment plan:
- Manage during meals. Just like we talked about last month with Thanksgiving, sometimes management during family meals is the easiest solution. Set up the environment to keep your pet out of the kitchen or in another room entirely during holiday meal prep and eating if need be.
- Manage stranger danger issues. Holiday parties are not a great time to work on your pet’s stranger danger issues. This is probably not as much of a problem with this year’s holidays, but something to keep in mind for the future. Put your pet completely away so that you don’t have to worry about anyone’s safety while you’re celebrating. They’ll be happy to be away from the festivities, too.
- Keep ornaments, lights, and tinsel off the bottom branches of your tree. All can pose as hazards, whether ingested, tangled up in, or knocked off by your pet.
- Keep candles out of reach. This is easier said than done for those of you with cats in your home.
- Keep hazardous gifts out of reach. Make a note of any gifts (especially food items) that are hazardous for your pet to get into and ask anyone else sending gifts if their presents should be kept out of reach too.
- Watch the wires. Make sure that wires are well-hidden from pets who are prone to chewing.
- Exercise pens are a Christmas tree’s best friend. Do you have a dog who’s a little too interested in your tree? Put a free-standing baby gate or exercise pen around your tree. Here’s the link to our Amazon storefront where you can find the exercise pen that we like (also pictured below). Disclosure: This is an affiliate link. We receive a small commission for purchases made through these links at no extra cost to you. This helps us continue to put out free content to help you and your pets live more harmoniously!
There are, of course, many other things that you may want to include in your holiday safety enrichment plan and each person’s plan is going to look different depending on how they celebrate during this time of year. We’d love to hear what’s included in your plan!
Now what?
- Decide how you’d like to create your holiday safety enrichment plan. Does it make sense to create it as you decorate? Are there parts you need to plan for before you start?
- Gather any management tools you need. Pick up baby gates, exercise pens, and the like before you need them.
- Discuss your pet’s holiday safety enrichment plan with your entire household and anyone else who is visiting your house. Make sure that everyone is on the same page to limit slip-ups.
- Be prepared to tweak your pet’s plan based on how it’s going. The best plans are dynamic.
- Share your plan with us on Facebook and Instagram @petharmonytraining
Happy training & happy holidays!
Allie
October 2020 Training Challenge: Assess Your Home Alone Activities Efficacy
Part of me can’t believe it’s already October and part of me reminds the first part that this has been the longest year ever. Regardless, it’s time for our October training challenge!
List enrichment strategies you employ while you’re gone and objectively go through the list to determine if those strategies are effective.
Not only is this training challenge dedicated to the “Independence” chapter of our book, it’s also a great exercise in taking a descriptive vs. prescriptive approach to your enrichment plan. (Note: we decided what the training challenges were going to be well before Covid hit. While you may not be gone at work all day at the moment, this exercise still applies for shorter outings!)
Descriptive vs. Prescriptive
For those of you who’ve heard us speak this year, you’ve heard us talk about taking a descriptive approach to your enrichment plan.
Descriptive: “I see a change in my animal’s behavior because of the activities we’ve done or provided.”
Prescriptive: “I provided an activity for my pet therefore he’s enriched.”
With the descriptive approach, we observe behavior to determine if the activity was effective instead of assuming that it was. Did it actually meet the animal’s needs as we intended? If it did, great! We can keep doing it. If it didn’t, well, then it’s back to the drawing board. Emily wrote a great blog post about this here. It’s not enough for us to just assume that our pet’s needs are being met while we’re gone, we need to actually observe that that’s true.
How can I tell if those activities are effective?
There are a few ways we can tell if these activities are effective:
- They’re being used. If you leave a stuffed Kong for your pet and it’s untouched when you return, that’s not an effective strategy.
- Watch your pet on video. Want to know if the window film you put up for your pet’s reactivity is actually decreasing reactivity throughout the day? It’s time to break out a recording option and see what your pet is up to during the day.
- Observe your pet’s behavior when you come home. Providing activities while you’re gone can be the determining factor between having an adolescent dog who’s bouncing off the walls when you come home vs. one who’s excited but not uncontrollable.
Now what?
- Make a list of the enrichment activities you utilize while your pet is home alone.
- Make a list of desirable and undesirable behaviors that you’re hoping these enrichment activities address.
- Observe your pet’s behavior. Are those activities effective in increasing desirable behaviors and decreasing undesirable behaviors?
- Adjust your enrichment plan accordingly.
- Share your findings with us on social media! @petharmonytraining on Facebook and Instagram.
Happy training!
Allie
September 2020 Training Challenge: Teach Your Pet to Use a New Food Puzzle
This month’s challenge is:
Teach your pet how to use a new food puzzle
As I mentioned in the beginning of the year (and throughout the other challenges), this year’s training challenges are dedicated to our book Canine Enrichment for the Real World. Each month focuses on a different category of enrichment. This month’s focus is “Mental Exercise”.
To effectively meet the mental exercise component, make sure that your new puzzle is challenging enough for your pet to employ their problem solving skills but not so challenging that they get frustrated and give up. There’s often a fine line between the two and that’s often why we need to teach our pets how to use their new toy.
From “They Won’t Do It” to “They Love It”
While foraging (searching for food) is a natural behavior for all species, food puzzles aren’t natural. There are no food puzzles growing in the wild so that the ancient dog or cat ancestor learned how to use them and pass that knowledge down to future generations. This is why we frequently need to teach our pets how to use a particular puzzle, especially if they haven’t used one before.
Check out our video below on how to teach your pet to use a food puzzle:
Here are some tips for teaching your pet a new food puzzle:
- Choose a puzzle with your pet’s preferences in mind. Our pets have preferences just like we do. For instance, Oso is a rough-and-tumble kind of dude. He’s great at the puzzles that he can knock over and roll around with his nose. He doesn’t mind the noise those make though he does prefer to use them on carpeted areas. I know that if I give him a new puzzle he can roll around I don’t need to show him how to to it. However, he’s not as adept at the intricate food puzzles that require a lot of small motions and steps. His way of solving those is dropping them on the floor so they break open (which, while a valid way to solve the puzzle is also expensive to buy replacements.) If I give him a more complicated puzzle I’ll have to teach him first before he can use it without breaking it.
- Choose a puzzle with your pet’s experience in mind. Giving a challenging food puzzle to a novice dog is likely to lead to frustration. On the other hand, giving a simple food puzzle to an experienced dog is not going to provide much of a challenge. Think about how much experience your dog has with food puzzles and choose a new one accordingly.
- Work up to the most challenging setting. Many puzzles have ways to make them more or less difficult. Instead of starting with the most difficult setting we should work our way up to it by first starting on the easiest, then easy-medium, medium, medium-hard, and finally the hardest setting. This allows our pet to master each setting and build a history of getting food from the puzzle. That history will help them keep at it for longer when it becomes more challenging.
- Show them how but try not to do it for them. It was once thought that only primates could learn through watching others but we now know that our pets can do this too! We can encourage them to use their new puzzle by showing them how to get the treats out a few times. Be careful though not to do it every time for them. Some learn that the best way to get the food out is to let the human do it! While that’s a clever solution in using their resources it doesn’t necessarily meet the goal we’re hoping to achieve by introducing a new puzzle. Show them how a few times then let them at it.
- Use a higher-value food. Higher-value food helps build more motivation in almost all training scenarios: this is no different! Up the ante when they’re first learning and save the kibble for when they’ve got the hang of it.
What food puzzle should I try?
Here are some of our favorite store bought options for dogs (Disclosure: These are affiliate links. We receive a small commission for purchases made through these links at no extra cost to you. This helps us continue to put out free content to help you and your pets live more harmoniously!):
- Slow feed bowls for absolute beginners:
- Easier puzzles:
- More challenging puzzles:
Here are some of our favorite store bought options for cats (Disclosure: These are affiliate links. We receive a small commission for purchases made through these links at no extra cost to you. This helps us continue to put out free content to help you and your pets live more harmoniously!):
- Easier puzzles:
- More challenging puzzles:
Small dogs and cats can often choose between these lists, too!
Don’t forget DIY!
Food puzzles don’t need to break the bank. There are a lot of simple, cheap, DIY options like these:
Now what?
- Buy and/or make your new puzzle!
- Teach your pet how to use their new toy, if needed.
- Share videos of your pets having fun and using their brains with us on Facebook or Instagram: @petharmonytraining
Happy training!
Allie
May 2020 Training Challenge: Play “Find It” 3 Times a Week
For those of you who have been doing training challenges with us for a while, you’ll recognize this one. It’s so beneficial to our pets that I had to bring it back!
Play Find it 3x per week
I’m a big fan of “lazy person’s” find it: scatter a bunch of treats or food on the floor and let your pet search for them. I play this with Oso while I’m watching TV at night. He has a great time and I get to relax. Win-win!
I recommend playing for just 10-15 minutes to start with, 3x/week and see how that impacts your pet’s behavior. For many pets I see that this relatively small amount of scent work is sufficient to decrease attention-seeking behaviors and increase periods of rest. You may decide to increase or decrease how frequently and how long you play for depending on what you see from your pet! And keep in mind that this isn’t just for dogs; there are many species who would love to play this game, too. I’ve known many cats who love this!
Why Find It?
There are several reasons why we love this game and it’s one that we recommend to almost all of our clients. Here are some of our favorite reasons:
- Great for relationship-building, especially for kids.
- Ticks the box for several categories of enrichment: foraging, mental exercise, and for some individuals the calming category.
- Fantastic for animals with anxiety, fear, and compulsive behaviors.
- Can be built upon for behavior modification techniques later.
Now What?
- Grab some treats and start playing!
- If your pet doesn’t already have a cue to search for food on the ground, teach them a word or phrase (the video above tells you how).
- If your pet is already a pro, you can increase the difficulty by playing outside in the grass or by hiding treats under furniture or items.
- Make sure you’re only hiding food in places where your pet is allowed to search. For instance, don’t place food on a table or counter if you don’t want your dog to search there normally!
Happy training!
Allie
April 2020 Training Challenge: Explore DIY Destructible Toys
We hope you’re all doing well and staying safe in this crazy time! I’m personally really excited about this month’s training challenge as it’s something that I recommend to clients all the time:
Explore DIY Destructible [Trash] Toys
Not only is this a simple and cheap activity, but it’s often great enrichment, too! Dogs were made to destroy and gut things. But, unfortunately for them, we humans don’t love that natural doggy behavior. We get upset when they destroy their toys. We get upset when they steal tissues and paper towels and shred them to pieces. We get even more upset when they destroy our furniture.
Toys that we purposefully give to dogs to destroy serve a wonderful purpose. Our pets get to do what they were made to do and we don’t get upset with them for it. It’s a win-win! An even larger bonus is that when we allow our pets to express their natural behaviors in appropriate ways, they are less likely to express them in ways that we’ve deemed inappropriate. Yep, that means that you can curb that annoying stealing-tissues-and-playing-keep-away-before-your-dog-inevitably-shreds-it behavior by providing these sort of toys.
I’m always looking for a cheaper way to provide enrichment for Oso (who LOVES shredding things), so while I’ll occasionally get him stuffed toys to de-stuff from clearance bins, our go-to’s are DIY trash toys. As the name suggests, I make them out of literal trash. Supplies include:
- Newspaper
- Toilet paper rolls
- Paper towel rolls
- Empty tissue boxes
- Granola bar, cereal, and similar boxes
- Take out beverage holders
- Treats
Check out our video on how to put it all together here:
And here’s a video of Oso enjoying one of those creations:
It’s truly as simple as it sounds!
Now what?
- Make some of your own destructible trash toys! Watch the above video for tips on how to make them.
- Give one to your dog and let them go to town! Watch your pup the first few times you’re giving them new items. While the majority of dogs will not ingest inedible items (especially if you’re not actively trying to get the item away from them), we want to double check to make sure they’re not ingesting them. A little bit of paper swallowed along with the treat isn’t a big deal but we don’t want them eating the whole thing!
- Routinely provide your dog with these items for a couple of weeks. Do you notice any changes in their behavior? Tag us on Instagram @petharmonytraining with your findings, pics, and videos!
- We frequently recommend these toys for dogs who have behavior issues- everything from demand barking and playful mouthing to anxiety and stress-related behaviors. Click here to work with one of our behavior consultants to learn how to use these toys to help your dog de-stress and incorporate them into your dog’s behavior modification plan!
Happy training!
Allie
